The Great Wines of America by Paul Lukas

I am currently reading The Great Wines of America by Paul Lukas. It is subtitled The Top Forty Vintners, Vineyards, and Vintages. I was curious as to what Paul Lukas thought was the top forty in America because that cannot be an easy choice to make. A quick look at the Table of Contents will be enough to tell you which forty the author chose. The list of the forty best is arranged in alphabetical order. At first, I disagreed with some of his choices, but after I read his reasons, I think I understand how Lukas made his choices. The selection includes people who were pioneers either of a region, a variety of grape, or a method of sales. The book was published in 2006 and it is showing some of it's age. For example, I really liked the the story about Patrick Campbell and Laurel Glen Vineyard, but when I went to their website, I learned that he sold his vineyard. I enjoyed reading about Calera, Chateau Montelena, Joseph Phelps, Quilceda, Rafanelli, Ridge, and Rochioli. I remember visiting Rafanelli in Dry Creek Valley some years ago. The visit was by appointment only and we needed to get a code to get into their gate. Pat Rafanelli let us taste their Zinfandel and Cabernet sauvignon, both wines were well made. The winery is a family run business. When Lukas writes about a certain region, he also includes other wineries and vintners of note in that region. The chapter on Rafanelli mentioned Grady Wann, who was my instructor when I took the UC Davis online course! We also visited Rochioli in the Russian River Valley a few times. In the chapter on Rochioli, Lukas mentioned Dehlinger. Shout out to Eva Dehlinger! I still have a few more wineries to get through since I am only on the "R"s. It's a good book to read at night to get inspired and fall into a deep slumber from the exertions of the day.

My Life in Bondage

I have become a hoer. My husband bought for us only the best hoes and that makes a difference. One of the things that we thought we needed to do was to get ahead of the weeds so we have been hoeing our vineyard rows. Our vines are in rows that are 800 feet long but, I cheerfully say, there are only 36!

I do get to commune very closely with nature when I am hoeing and so far I have seen a fluorescent green spider that Pamm Cooper of the UConn Extension identified as a small Araneus cingulatus. It is one of many types of orb weaving spiders. While sitting on a rock taking a break, I saw a lady bug! This is a good omen of beneficial insects that might call the vineyard home. Lady bugs are good in oh so many ways.

When I find Cynanchum nigrum commonly called Black swallowwort, I try to get them out because before you know it, they will be everywhere. Their root system reminds me of a medusa.
I've also been pulling out orange roots, because they are the roots of Celastrus orbiculatus or Bittersweet. One of the delights in weeding is seeing all of the earthworms that are inhabiting the soil. That is a good sign! Mother Nature has provided a little reprieve for me today, it is raining!

Budbreak in the Vineyard

The Mudd Vineyard Crew from Long Island planted our vines on Monday, May 20th, finishing up on Wednesday, May 22nd. We were so exhausted (just watching, basically), that we didn't do much of anything after they left on Wednesday. We did walk a bit of the vineyard on Thursday and Friday. When we did some weeding on Friday, we noticed that we were having some budbreak! We were helped by the rain that fell on Thursday evening into Friday morning. I remember when we first met Charles Massoud of Paumanok, he said that in all of his 28 years in the business, no two years were alike and that Mother Nature trumps everything. So far, we have been looked upon kindly by Mother Nature. Our spring was dry and cool, keeping the weeds at bay. Although the days that the Mudd Vineyard Crew were planting, it did warm up to near 80 degrees, fortunately for us, we got some needed rain a few days later. It has been very cool with night time temperatures dipping into the 40s on Saturday and Sunday. The vines, however, are resilient and when we walked the vineyard on Sunday, more vines were saying hello to growing in Connecticut. The above photo is Chenin blanc in budbreak.

Dinner Celebration at Ford's Lobster

On Wednesday, we joined our friends at Ford's Lobster in Noank to celebrate Mary's mother's 90th birthday. Ford's is a good place to go to because they let you bring your own alcohol. My husband and I brought two whites, one was Rosewood's Natalie's Süssreserve Riesling. All of our friends remarked how much they liked the wine. When we told them that they had met the winemaker, Natalie Spytkowsky, they were able to put a face to the winemaker! How cool is that!
The wine paired really well with the bacon wrapped shrimp appetizer and calamari that we had. In addition to the two white wines, we had a bottle of 2005 Chappellet Cabernet sauvignon/Petite verdot/Malbec, as well as Barry's special from WTSO and a 1995 Dominus with our meals. We had a great time!

Laser Planting Our Vines in Rockopolis

On Monday morning, the crew from Mudd Vineyards arrived promptly and got down to business. They decided to begin from row 6, the start of the block of Chenin blanc. When they went to plant this row, they ran into so many rocks, it jostled their planter and the vines ended up not being 4 feet apart. They tried this for a few more rows, some rows with more success than others. They don't call this Stonington for nothing! If the Greeks had discovered this land first, they would have named it Rockopolis. We felt really bad, even though we knew that we had done all the land preparation we could by turning over the top soil down to three feet and sifting out all of the large rocks. Our friend reminded us that rocks are the number one perennial crop in Connecticut.

We had a few visitors including our friend Mary's 90 year old mother, Margie. Margie is visiting from Santa Rosa, California, wine country. Margie and Barry brought a Passionfruit mousse cake when they came to visit and we had it with the morning coffee break which was much appreciated. The crew consisting of John, the tractor driver, Oscar and Herman, the planters and Phil who checked to make sure that all the plants were ending up straight, persevered. In the end, what worked was if John went through the row first and turned up the rocks. Oscar and Herman would pick up the rocks. My husband, friend Frost and I would occasionally lend a hand and then the crew went back through the row to plant. This is what they had to do and in two and a half days, all of the 6800+ vines where planted! We could never have planted the vineyard without everyone's hard work!

Uncrating the Vines

The weather was a little unsettled over the weekend and we continued to monitor the situation. On Sunday, we received a call from Steve saying that the planting is a go! We had to get into action to uncrate the vines and trim the roots to the required 8 inches. Mercier did a great job in packing the vines and labeling the outside of the box regarding the contents. We put the sawdust in another box and lifted out the neatly packed bundles of joy!, oh yes grapevines. There were 25 to a bundle and it made it easy for us to cut off the roots. We then put the bundle into a solution of Superthrive.

The first time we finished uncrating, cutting roots, soaking the vines it took us 3 hours. We calculated that it took us 40 minutes back and forth from home to fill up our IBC tank with water and Superthrive solution. The next time, we didn't take that long but by the time we were on box number 4, it was raining and we had our rain gear on. Lesson number 1: Things just take much longer then we actually planned for. None of this would have been possible had it not been for Dave coming to the rescue with the tall black bins and pallets to put them on. We are learning! Next time we hope to be better prepared, but the good news was that by the end of the day, we were ready for planting the vines!

Our Vines Have Arrived

Like expectant parents anxiously awaiting the exact arrival time of a baby, we were figuratively pacing back and forth on Friday waiting for our shipment of 6800+ vines being driven across country from Vacaville, California to Old Mystic, CT. When we got a call from Old Dominion Shipping Company, they were already about 30 minutes away from our location! My husband had just finished putting his fork attachment on his tractor just in time. A very young looking person named John was the driver of the shipment. After we successfully unloaded the four crates, we asked John what he thought were in the crates. His response was that he thought he was driving around saw dust. That made us laugh! This is how the vines packed in the 4 crates were transferred from the shipping truck to our property.

We opened up one of the sealed plastic bags and removed a bundle of plants from the cool sawdust. The vines came through just fine. Mercier California did a great job and were in contact with us throughout the transport so that we could connect with Old Dominion. We have the vines in a refrigerated truck we borrowed from our neighbor so that they will be kept at a cool but not cold temperature for planting day.

We are crossing our fingers and hoping that Mother Nature will be kind to us and allow the laser guided planting scheduled for Monday and Tuesday to proceed as planned. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Argyros Vinsanto

We drank this 1984 Vinsanto from Kthima Argyros (Kthima=Estate) at our Greek friend's home and it brought back all kinds of memories. In 2004, we joined our friends for a trip to Greece to see the Olympics, the Greek ruins and meet family and friends. We had a great time and saw so many ruins that we called this trip that our friend was taking us on as high throughput sightseeing. I did get to check a major thing off my bucket list which was to see the Parthenon at the Acropolis. It was magnificent. A little digression: Before going to Greece, my husband was trying to convince me that I should get a digital camera. I stuck to my guns (I can be a little stubborn at times), preferring film, telling him that film has better resolution. Well, right when we reached the top of the Acropolis, my film started rewinding because it had reached the last photo. I thought I had put in a roll of 36 but in reality, it was a roll of 10! I missed taking photos of the Acropolis! Fortunately for me, my husband had a small digital camera. I learned my lesson, but it wasn't until 2008 that I succumbed to the ditigal age and have been snap happy ever since.

But back to our recollections. After the Olympics was over in Athens, we took a trip to Crete and then to Santorini. On Santorini, our friends took us to Kthima Argyros. This photo shows our friend in the gray t-shirt and Yiannis Argyros the grandson of Georgios Argyros, the founder of Kthima Argyros, in the red shirt. Georgios Argyros established Kthima Argyros in 1903 on 5 acres of land. Yiannis Argyros showed us around the barrel room and then we bought some Vinsanto. Since we were there in early September, we also saw the harvest and the drying of the grapes in the hot sun of Santorini. These grapes are the starting material for the delicious dessert wine of Santorini, or Vinsanto. On the back of this bottle, the label indicated that this 1984 Vinsanto was No. 04679. Since the establishment of Kthima Argyros was in 1903, they must be celebrating the 110th anniversary this year! Συγχαρητήρια Κτήμα Αργυρού!

Pencil Rods and The $64 Tomato

Our pencil rod dilemma is rapidly approaching The $64 Tomato debacle status. It was a good deal to go over to Long Island to pick up some used pencil rods. When we were there, we bundled 2,000 in 3 hours. We brought the rest of the pencil rods home in a galvanized bucket and were able to add 1,000 more to the pile after about 5 more hours of work.

Now the law of diminishing returns is working with us. We had already retrieved the low hanging rods, as it were, what remained were good but bent rods, rusted rods, and a large pile of bent and rusted pencil rods. Yesterday, while my husband worked in the field in preparation for planting, I sorted the remaining pencil rods into piles and started scraping and sanding the rust off the pencil rods that remained like a Sisyphusian task before me.

I've gone through 2 gloves, one a pair of leather Stihl gloves, we've purchased numerous rust cleaning tools, and coarse sandpaper and in a moment of desperation, went to see our friend the welder to see if he had any ideas. I need to find 340 more rods that can be cleaned and then I'm off the hook. Luckily, my husband is a believer in the adage "Time is money!" and apparently, I am working too slowly for our used pencil rod find to pay off.

From the Mouth of a Millennial

In order to understand our target market, I have been reading many articles about the Millennials in our Vineyard and Winery Management magazines. Little did I know that I didn't have to do all that reading because we raised a Millennial, our son. Recently, he went to a few wineries in Virginia and this is what he wrote: L____ and I were down in south VA visiting her aunt, and her parents were there as well. It was nice to be out in the country, and we made a point to visit a couple wineries in the Monticello AVA today. We basically visited one we loved and absolutely envisioned, and another that was very mainstream.
The first place we went to was Lovingston, and they are the southernmost in the Monticello AVA, just 10 miles or so north of Lynchburg. The vineyard was a nice and small place, along the hillside (vines on top of the hill). Their storage is built into the hillside, which helps with the temp control I imagine. They are small, they do 1500 cases a year. It is a couple that owns it, and they have a winemaker from South Africa who has really done an amazing job. I want EVERY single wine they make, that is how good it is. Luckily, the voice of reason (L____) was by my side. They had a Pinotage which was unique to VA, and REALLY good. What these guys are doing is incredible, you have to look them up.
The second place we went to is XXX Vineyards, which is a more established place in the Monticello AVA that has been around for 20+ years I believe. I must say, maybe we have been brainwashed by you guys, but we did find it to be more of a scene, big, and just one of those large places you may see in Sideways. They have 150 acres of vines, over 21 wines to taste, 5 people that poured (down a line, assembly style). Felt rushed, not impressed at all. They just recited word for word the text descriptions, added nothing of their own. XXX was blah.
In sum, you need to look up and try Lovingston if you haven't yet, I can assure you they are one of the best here. If you guys don't make it down here and see what these guys are doing, I'll bring up some of their wine in July. How I discovered Lovingston: A new little wine shop opened up in the new Union Market in the NE district, that is one of the few places in DC that promotes VA wines, I tried it in a tasting (next to Linden Claret), and it stood out. And for the price ($16-26) their wines simply cannot be beat.
The bottom line for us, trying to break into the winemaking business:
Pay attention to what the Millennials are thinking and drinking!

More on Saignée

I'm back to blogging about the original article I was reading "Chemical and Sensory Effects of Saignée, Water Addition, and Extended Maceration on High Brix Must" before I became distracted by the 1972 article by Vernon Singleton which I blogged about in Berry Size and Red Wine Quality. In this current study, James F. Harbertson, Maria S. Mireles, Eric D. Harwood, Karen M. Weller, and Carolyn F. Ross took Merlot grapes which were harvested at 28^o Brix and subjected the must to the following five different treatments:¹

• (1) Control---water addition to compensate for a high Brix must
• (2) High ethanol---water addition to achieve 26.8 Brix
• (3) Low saignée---juice runoff with an equal volume of water addition to target 24.1 Brix
• (4) Low saignée plus extended maceration---similar treatment to (3) but with 20 days extended maceration
• (5) High saignée---approximately 32% saignée with water addition to compensate

Full disclosure: Before Natalie pronounced the word "sonyay" I was pronouncing it "sag-knee", no there is no sagging knee in saignée. The study compared the above 5 treatments with respect to the phenolic/tannin extraction in the wine followed by a sensory evaluation. The phenolics/tannins are located in the skin and seeds of grapes. The wide range of tannins in wine compared to the fruit suggests that winemaking plays the greater role in determining the final tannin content in the wine.
Anthocyanins, which give red wine their color is a flavonoid type of phenolic. The positive charge on the anthocyanins means that they are more likely to be extracted in an aqueous environment, such as at the beginning of fermentation. Tannins are more ethanol soluble and consequently, they are extracted from the grape skins and seeds as ethanol levels rise.
In this study, anthocyanin, tannin and iron reactive phenolic content were measured at press and again at 185 days. The most tannic wine was (4) the low saignée and extended maceration treatment. it was also significantly less smooth and more drying than the other treatments. The conclusion also mentions that treatment (3) low saignée with an equal volume of water addition did not yield higher concentrations of phenolics or greater aroma or flavor attributes. This is clearly a paper that I need to read again and again in order to understand the final results. I may need to update this blog in order to clarify the conlcusions. Stay tuned.
Reference:
1. James F. Harbertson, Maria S. Mireles, Eric D. Harwood, Karen M. Weller, and Carolyn F. Ross "Chemical and Sensory Effects of Saignée, Water Addition, and Extended Maceration on High Brix Must", Am. J. Enol. Vitic., December 2009, 60:450-460.

1990 Charmes-Chambertin Faiveley

We had Natalie and Darryl from Ontario visit us this past weekend and for dinner on Monday, we decided to go to The Oyster Club in Mystic. My husband called ahead of time and was told that it would be okay to bring our own wine for a small corkage fee. That works!
One of the two bottles that we brought with us was this 1990 Charmes-Chambertin from Faiveley. No barnyardy nose for this Burgundy, it was dark cherries, red raspberries, and a mouth full of soft tannins. We drank this, but not necessarily paring it with a dozen fresh shucked oysters then moved on to our entrees which included scallops, tilefish, tagliatelle and steak.
The company was stellar, the meal was superb and the wine sealed the deal.

The Vineyard by Louisa Hargrave

This is the 40th anniversary of wine on Long Island. So it stands to reason that it is a very good year to read The Vineyard written by Louisa Hargrave. My husband purchased this book many years ago because it is subtitled The Pleasures and Perils of Creating an American Family Winery and since that was what we would be undertaking, he thought it would be instructive. After he read the book, he told me not to read it. Anytime your spouse tells you not to do something, it is a challenge to do it. So, I read the book maybe 5 years ago and felt dismayed at the ending which overshadowed everything else in the book. Well, a lot can happen in 5 years so I read the book again a few days ago. Any reading of a book can be colored by one's experience, intervening education, and just the timing. This time, I found the book to be very relevant to what we are trying to do, although we will not be pioneers in our region of Southeastern Connecticut. When Louisa wrote about farming or making wine, I now understood what it was about.
This book is Louisa's personal chronicle of starting a vineyard of Vitis vinifera grapes in 1973 and learning how to make wine through reading and experimenting. Louisa and her (then) husband Alex showed that European grape varieties can grow on Long Island and make wines that could taste like they were from Bordeaux! This revelation was the draw for others to follow. This year marks the 40th Anniversary and it is a good year to read this book to learn how it all began. I also found this link A Conversation with Louisa Hargrave written by JOSÉ MORENO-LACALLE, MA, DWS, which is a very good update on what Louisa Hargrave is doing now and her thoughts on Long Island wines and wineries.

Meeting with Lisa Krall from the NRCS

On the day that my husband and lifesaver Bill went to Long Island to pick up the remainder of the pencil rods, we had previously scheduled a meeting with Lisa Krall from the NRCS. I stayed back and met Lisa on our land and we walked the property to determine where the wetlands began. My only regret is that I didn't have my camera because I learned a lot from Lisa. Lisa took soil samples using a Dutch auger and showed me the various colors of the soil. We started on the area where we intend to plant the vines and Lisa showed me what the soil profile looked like there. The soil was only slightly damp, we are in need of a good rain, but I don't want to do the rain dance, yet. Then we walked down to the wetland area and using the Dutch auger, Lisa showed me how the soil profile differed there. The top layer is very dark indicative of a layer of humus. Digging further down, Lisa brought up a sample that was mottled gray and yellow/orange and she told me that this indicated the presence of a fluctuating water table. When the water table is not present, oxygen causes the iron in the soil to oxidize and turn the color of rust.

She next identified the trees, shrubs and cover growth in the wetlands. During our walk, she happened upon a jack-in-the-pulpit, which we rescued and is now planted in a shady area at our home. Lisa also emailed me the ID of a cute little white flower that covered the wetland floor. It is a wood anemone! A question that I had for Lisa regarded the ice age which created our soils. Lisa said that the ice age that created the rather acidic soils that we have occurred about 19,000 years ago. She also said that Long Island is the terminal moraine of that ice age. Neat!

Berry Size and Red Wine Quality

I was reading an article published in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture about saignée which is French for bleed. In winemaking, saignée refers to the removal of juice before the start of fermentation. Which reminds me that at this point in our vineyard planning, we also seem to be bleeding. All of the accessories that are necessary to plant a vineyard, individually seem reasonable, but when they come all at once it is quite shocking! Note to self for later: Planting a vineyard entails more than just the cost of plants.
Anyway back to saignée. The article that I was reading is called "Chemical and Sensory Effects of Saignée, Water Addition, and Extended Maceration on High Brix Must" (I'll write another blog on this article) and it was interesting but I happened upon a paper in the literature cited section, written by Vernon Singleton in 1972 and read that as well. Singleton's paper is called "Effects on Red Wine Quality of Removing Juice before Fermentation to Simulate Variation in Berry Size" and he conducted various experients to understand if juice removal before fermentation had any effect on wine quality.
Singleton starts with an often heard premise that "A struggling vine makes the best wine." His explanation is that a struggling vine will produce smaller berries and this may offer a reasonable explanation for the quality of wine produced. In order to test this hypothesis, Singleton harvested 10 different red varieties and subjected the juice to 3 different treatments. The treatments included:

• (1) removal of 10% of the free run juice, to simulate smaller berries
• (2) addition of 10% of the free run juice, to simulate larger berries
• (3) the control to which nothing was done

All the wines were made in the same way and a sensory panel judged the wines. The bottom line was that all other things being equal, as little as a 10% decrease in average berry size which can be approximated by the use of saignée can be expected to produce a recognizable and therefore an important increase in red wine aroma, color, tannin, and quality. So saignée or bleeding, in winemaking is a good thing!
Reference:
1. James F. Harbertson, Maria S. Mireles, Eric D. Harwood, Karen M. Weller, and Carolyn F. Ross "Chemical and Sensory Effects of Saignée, Water Addition, and Extended Maceration on High Brix Must", Am. J. Enol. Vitic., December 2009, 60:450-460.
2. V. L. Singleton, "Effects on Red Wine Quality of Removing Juice before Fermentation to Simulate Variation in Berry Size", Am. J. Enol. Vitic., 1972 23:106-113.